Trump treks to UN amid tensions
Some world leaders anxious about what president will say
USA TODAY WASHINGTON President Donald Trump heads to the United Nations this week to meet with world leaders, and many of them are anxious — not just about global national security challenges but about Trump himself.
While the still-new president hopes to use his first appearance before the U.N. General Assembly to rally other countries against North Korea’s nuclear threats, some world leaders are still reeling from their last interactions with the somewhat testy Trump at global summits earlier this year.
Administration officials said Trump will arrive in New York with multiple missions, including trying to convince other countries to help the U.S. pressure North Korea into giving up nuclear weapons. He plans to criticize the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran and address the economic meltdown in Venezuela and the ongoing civil war in Syria.
Nikki Haley, Trump’s ambassador to the U.N., put those plans simply: The president “slaps the right people, he hugs the right people, and he comes out with the U.S. being very strong in the end.”
Trump will also pursue what his aides call “U.N. reform,” another way of calling on members to pay for United Nations projects.
U.N. members, meanwhile, will be watching the president’s tone, some foreign policy analysts say, given his aggressive performances at this year’s NATO meeting, Group of Seven and Group of 20 summits.
There, Trump “came off as boorish and money-grubbing and often unresponsive to the concerns of partner nations,” said Stewart Patrick, senior fellow with the Council of Foreign Relations.
“At the U.N,” Patrick said, “Trump can win by surpassing expectations about what he is going to say.”
Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump “performed poorly” at previous international meetings, and diplomats are concerned about a rerun.